Scottish Independence.

[Rocky Road]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13326310

Some more debate on this topic.

[eyeball]

Cool. I'm keen on visiting the Isle of Skye someday - it's where my ancestors are from.

I wonder if rebelliousness is partly genetic in nature. I'll never forget passing a copy of Braveheart to the boys who were occupying our local fisheries office back in the day. The movie certainly captured a sense of the sort of dispossessing and disenfranchising machinations that wealth and power have been inflicting on people, forever it seems.

Freeeeedommmmm!!!!!

[Rocky Road]

The plan is to "keep the British pound".

Ha!

[neobendez]

This is such a broad and complicated matter. If Scotland wants to be Independent they could do that but they have a lot of factors to consider.

[-TSS-]

One argument which is thrown time and again is that if Scotland secedes from the UK then there would never be a Labour-government in England(or whatever the country that is left of the UK would be called) but I think that is exaggeration. The Tories are admittedly more popular in England than elsewhere in the UK but when Blair won three elections in two of those elections Labour was the largest party in England as well.

[Rocky Road]

FK fragmented kingdom

[Remiel]

Size-wise I think Scotland could do okay in Europe. There are plenty of countries around that 5 million mark, including Denmark and Norway, both of which have a very high standard of living.

I am becoming less and less a fan of ancient historical grievances. Better to be able to point to things that have happened in living memory that to worry about things that happened the better part of a millenium ago.

I guess I have mixed feelings about Scottish independence. I am not looking for Quebec to separate and it seems kind of hypocritcal to support Scottish independence for equally romantic reasons. That said, I had thought that Scottish independence was a lot less parochial than Quebec's. I had heard that residents in Scotland hailing from other parts of Britain were entirely welcome to be citizens of an independent Scotland, and that they would all get the vote regardless of what part of the UK they were from.

One thing that could get interesting if Scotland gains independence: Northern Ireland. I was under the impression that a lot of folks from around there had Scots in their background. Without Scotland in the UK, are the Northern Irish going to be as fiercely UK as they are now, or will that connection wane somewhat?

[Rocky Road]

"Aye have you had your tea then?"

Bonny Scotland.

[-TSS-]

There are good and solid arguments against Scottish independence and I'm sure that the no-votes will win more or less comfortably and the issue will be buried for decades to come.

However, there are also stupid arguments against Scottish independence and one of them is that Scotland with 5m people would be too small to be an independent country. The idea that a small country has more influence in the world as a non-independent part of a bigger union than as an independent country is just bonkers. We in Finland could also say that we should have stayed part of Russia so we'd be more respected in the world because we belong to a big and mighty country.

[overthere]

The Scottish National Party is overwhelmigly the most popualr party in Scotland but the people of Scotland are very unlikely to support the main-agenda of the party- the independence.

If and when the referendum will end ina defeat for the independence it will bury the issue for decades to come and really destroy the reason for existence for the SNP:

Your first sentence is very good, though you don't say why the nationalists will not vote for nationalism. It's the same reason they don't in Quebec: the money. The UK economy (and that includes Scotland) is largely driven by the economic giant cash machine of the South and especially London. It's no secret. In the end, common sense will prevail and Scotland will not vote to leave all that lovely cash behind, regardless of ancient festering grievances. It's trendy to be a nationalist, but it's soft at the core.

The loss of a referendum won't change much for the SNP, particularly in these tough economic times. Scotland is a place that has had far more years that are tough economically than they've had wealth. Right now, the SNP is a lightning rod for the myriad of disaffected, and that won't change with the loss of a vote. It is similar in that sense to the PQ: support waxes and wanes, but there are always those who live the dream forever.

Edited December 6, 2013 by overthere

[Rocky Road]

Hmm interesting.